Timebomb of the Ancients

The Delmintalintar's Bomb of the Ancients is an artifact in Heretic. It looks like a floating hourglass. When set, a Timebomb of the Ancients floats where the player was standing for 40 tics, then explodes and deals damage another 6 tics later. It causes splash damage 128 units in radius, with 128 units of damage at the center.

This item is included in the items percentage displayed at the end of each level.

Strategies

 * When the player is being chased by hordes of monsters, it can be effective to leave behind some timebombs to clear them away.
 * The timebomb also acts as a grenade, being very good at clearing rooms with weak monsters. It is overall an extremely effective way to deal significant amounts of damage.

Bugs
If the player is below a ledge and stands directly against the boundary line between the low sector and the higher one, it is possible to spawn a timebomb on top of the high sector from below. This can potentially be exploited to damage otherwise unreachable monsters above the player.

Appearance statistics
In the IWADs the timebomb of the ancients is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of timebombs of the ancients per skill level:

Other games
Hexen and Hexen II have similar items, the Fléchette and the Glyph of the Ancients respectively, but their effects are slightly different depending on the player's character class.